


Crossing the Border

by Sanj



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-01
Updated: 2001-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:49:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanj/pseuds/Sanj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time before he'd become Nightwing -- his youth, his adolescence -- was blurred, inaccessible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing the Border

**Author's Note:**

> My first Batman story, written for the original Canadian Shack challenge back in 2001. I'm relatively certain Cereta cast an eye over this at some point.

"Lady Shiva's way ahead of you." Babs' voice -- Oracle's, it was scrambled -- was tinny in the cockpit of the Batmobile. "Looks like she's crossed the border."

Well, that made sense, Dick decided. You drive vehicles capable of speeds over 300mph straight north for long enough, and it was time to get a new national anthem. "Not sure I know the words to 'O, Canada,' Batman," he said. "Why does she want you so far from Gotham?"

Batman made a grunt that signified amusement. Or agreement. Dick was never sure. "Oracle, what's happening in Gotham?"

"It's Dullsville," Oracle reported. "My eyes and ears have nothing to report. Robin's still following that fence you wanted tailed. And before you ask, Wondrous One, the citizens of Bludhaven are snug in their beds." Dick was startled; he'd forgotten he'd started an evening's work before Batman called him in.

For help. Because Batman needed him.

Dick found he was still grinning.

"Keep me apprised, Oracle," Batman said. "Nightwing thinks it's a trap."

"I'm inclined to agree. Lady Shiva . . . well, this isn't her usual style." Even with the scrambler, Dick could tell Babs was worried.

_She's too good for either one of us alone,_ Dick wanted to say -- but didn't. "We'll keep our eyes open," Dick promised her.

"Do so. If she's got an accomplice waiting for the two of you to leave your posts, we've got you covered." She'd call in Robin, Batgirl, the PD, Black Canary, and even (expletives deleted) Azrael. . . and then she'd roll down to the action herself and put the big bad on the business end of her escrima stick.

And then -- only then -- she might call the Huntress.

Women.

"Shiva's got something up her sleeve, Oracle, but I don't think it's a goose chase."

_Well, of course not_ , Dick thought. _It's a wild bat-and-bird chase._ He was glad he no longer felt compelled to say these things when they popped into his head.

"All right, Batman. Just watch yourselves. Oracle out."

When Barbara cut the connection, Dick realized how far from Gotham they were. Oh, he'd been much farther, and so had Batman, but rarely together, alone.

He wasn't certain that had ever happened, actually. Certainly not since Dick had turned in his wings as Robin, and left. Time before then -- his youth, his adolescence -- blurred. Memories were . . . inaccessible.

He'd destroyed his youth, burnt it down, with one searing kiss on his eighteenth birthday. And nothing -- not his love for Barbara (substantial) nor his fear of rejection (considerable) nor his admission of Bruce's weaknesses (hard-won) could keep him from coming back to that night, from circling around it as though it were prey. The way Bruce had leaned into him, a sound Dick had never heard coming from his throat -- and then backed away, in horror, as if Dick were purest poison.

The thundering slam of the Batcave door.

Years ago, now.

"I don't think you and I have ever been this far out," Batman said then.

"You're not sure?"

"I'm never sure," Batman (Bruce) said. "I forget sometimes that you were Robin, once." Bruce (Batman) didn't look away from the road. "That you were ever that child." The silence yawned between them as Shiva's battered hangout appeared on the radar. "Sometimes I think you were born as Nightwing. On your eighteenth -- when you turned eighteen."

Dick knew then that their minds were running in parallel, racing together at three hundred miles per hour. "I was."


End file.
